“What are you waiting for?” she asks, as her gaze drops to my fingers where they rest featherlight on the keypad before looking up at me again.
“What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean.”
No, I don’t. It’s a bit late in the day to be adding riddles.
“You’ve had no response from Nathan Beaumont or anybody in corporate as regards the spa’s changes, have you? I know because Nathan or corporate would’ve copied me in.”
My shoulders sag. No, I haven’t. Deshni and Sarika’s spa changes have been in full swing for a few weeks now, and although Jem didn’t say a thing, her square shoulders andthin-pressed lips when she realized we went over her head said everything.
“Well, now that they’re up and running, I might pull the numbers and we’ll see that the spa is already making more money week on week.”
“You still didn’t follow procedure,” Jem says. “Never mind head office, Nathan won’t like that.”
More like you don’t like itI want to huff out, but I bite my tongue for a second. “I’m sure the spa on Ne’emba Island is the least of Nathan Beaumont’s concerns. Honestly, I think as CEO he has better things to do with his time.”
Jem harrumphs. “Don’t for one second think Nathan doesn’t care about Ne’emba and what happens here. He’ll fly over in a wink if he thinks anything remotely dodgy is happening on our spot of paradise.” She stands, switches off her computer and gets ready to leave.
Anything remotely dodgy?What the hell? This is why I can’t relax around this woman. It’s like she’s watching me for the tiniest misstep so she can bask and glow in her own glorious superiority. I’m fuming, but not a whiff of smoke bellows out of my ears as I keep my poker face in place.
“Aren’t you going to meet the guests for sundowners?”
“No. I’ll go later,” I bite out. “I’m going to take half an hour to check my private email and send messages to my family and friends. I do have a life beyond this place, you know.”
Dang it, that was mean, but she keeps on pushing my buttons. Ne’emba is Jem and Mike’s life and it’s nothing to scoff at. She doesn’t respond, and when she walks out, I call out after her, half in apology, “Have a good evening!”
I lean back in my chair, close my eyes, and take a few calming breaths. I’m not in the right mental space for this shit, but I can’t stop myself either. I typeMia Reed Sex Tapeinto the search bar and wait for a good minute until the screen fills with links.
Since she refused to pay the hackers, Mia Reed’s video has made the rounds on porn sites, and now it has finally slipped into mainstream social media. For real. Not just a little bit. More like, in an apocalyptic bang. And probably not the way anybody intended.
Rumors of it being a deep-fake ran thick as molasses, but then there’sme. Who’d bother to deep-fake that idiot in the video?
I scroll through the search engine, being selective in picking my poison. There’s so many to choose from. Seems the world isn’t exactly enamored with Mia Reed’s performance during cunnilingus. Neither do they care for the suckerfish between her legs. It’smewho’s making my way down the highway to social media hell or heaven—also known as fame—whichever way you look at it.
I’m the woman who walks in on Mia, eyes going like saucers as I freeze on the spot, then retreat like a freaking weirdo, hands in the air, horrified. I’m caught in perfect profile, my head tilted just enough that most of my face shows. It’s creepy as I don’t blink once, but the rest of the world thinks it’s funny as all fuck.
I feel like a complete idiot. I’m pretty much a laughingstock in the States as the current trending meme overlay:Thatmoment when I…Add your own video and fill in the blanks. I’m the face of fake human horror and surprise, and people are having a field day.
The fact that I’m shrugging my jacket’s arm sleeve back up and that my hand, which for a millisecond rests so close to my breast, drops away in a second, has gone over the world’s head. Nobody seems to interpret the video for what it really is. Me walking in on my ex servicing a movie star. No, all they see is a woman, reversing out in horrified shock, beep-beep-beeping like a truck would.
It works in my favor, but still, I’m a freaking wreck. I open one social media site and type in the hashtag most people use. Short videos pop up.God. Some of them have been watched over a million times since I looked yesterday. Now I want to puke.
At least in this sleepy corner of the world, I’m still incognito, and I thank God for that. Not that anybody out there seems to know who I am, or actually care. Or if they do, they have no easy way to reveal my identity. Since doing that social-media liposuction session with Evan when this whole shit show started in November, I’m kind of hard to find and tag. No posts, to my knowledge, have included my name.
Dammit. I don’t know if I want to laugh or cry.
All I know is that I’m grateful to be here on Ne’emba Island, where life goes on with dubious WiFi in a different time zone, everybody ignorant of my current status as joke du jour. I couldn’t have planned this better. We’re not in the eye of the storm yet—I mean, this could still swing way more out of control—but at least I’m far away and so thoroughly distracted by Tristan that I can bear my brief stint of ludicrous internet fame. And it will be brief. I know that. Soon there will be another meme or trending sound or video to distract and amuse the hordes. Thiswillblow over, and I will weather the storm.
“Lexi?” Tristan’s shadow falls in the door. “What are you still doing—ah,babes.”
There’s a slight reprimand in his tone, but it’s sweet and caring. I lean back in my chair and wait for him to round my desk.Fuck, he’s hot—tanned, tousled hair, five o’clock shadow. I want to lick him.
And yes. I’m in trouble. Big, fat, hairy trouble.
When he left for Hawaii after that frat-party night, I convinced myself Tristan was a stupid teenage crush. Turns out there was more to it than a crush, because it didn’t take much for my feelings to resurface. And this time, they’re so much stronger.
I don’t want to think the words because they will manifest my emotions in a way I can’t backtrack from. So much for all my little rules. Yes, I got into bed with Tristan with my eyes wide open, on my own terms, but I underestimated my heart’s capacity to fall in love again. I’m going to hurt so badly when our time here is done. The mere thought makes me feel as if I were about to skydive out of an airplane without a parachute.
